In The Shadow Of A Dream
by Tarma Hartley
Summary: Two dreams, one nightmare... For whom will it be just a dream and for whom will it become a nightmare? Mature, yaoi, Phoenix & Edgeworth


_A/N: This is the story of what happened in the weeks leading up to the first chapter of "Little Place of Forgetting." This is also a horror story and, as such, some scenes may be disturbing to some readers. Viewer discretion is advised._

Two dreams, one nightmare... A warning of things to come. For whom is the dream _just_ a dream... and for whom will _become_ a nightmare?

A HUGE thanks to my betas for their awesome work and my husband for helping to keep me grounded during the writing process so I didn't end up tearing my hair out. :)

I hope that you enjoy this story and, as always, comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. :)

Horror/Angst, Mature, male/male relationships, yaoi, Phoenix & Edgeworth

—o--

_We walked hand-in-hand toward a lovely hot spring surrounded by lush greenery clustered thickly in a circle, ferns dipping their leaves in an attitude of awe and respect, pearls of dew gently falling to the grass covered ground._

_A thick stone fence encircled the spring, steam twisting gently as it rose from the heated water. The swirling mist seemed to hug and caress Phoenix's naked form as he gently stepped into the spring, the only sound the soft whisper of his towel slowly falling to the ground._

_He sighed softly as he slowly sank into the refreshing hot water, his eyes fluttering half-closed in pleasure, a secret smile on his face. He glanced over to where I'm standing, slightly off to the right, naked save for a thick black towel wrapped tightly around my waist._

"Come on in, Miles," _he invited, his eyes twinkling with a combination of both mischief and love. _"It feels wonderful and there's plenty of room for both of us."

_I smile back at him, gently running my hand through my dark grey hair and shaking my bangs out of my face, the end of one of them tickling my nose and I sneeze in response. Phoenix laughs softly as he slowly turns in the water, crossing his arms over the top of the stone fence and looks lazily at me, his eyebrow crooking in an unmistakable invitation._

_He looks so very attractive, lounging there half out of the spring, hot water cascading down his back in a slow stream, his skin glistening in the soft sunlight that manages to trickle down through the thick canopy of green surrounding us._

_I couldn't help but be drawn to his naked body rising so succulently out of the water and staring at him as he lay there; my mouth went dry as I continued to gaze upon him. I felt my heart begin to thump in my chest and I vaguely wondered if he could hear it since the sound was becoming so loud in my ears._

_It's amazing the effect that this beautiful and child-like man has on me; he has become such an intricate part of my life that I can't imagine life without him. I swallow hard as my eyes lock with his, my hands beginning to tremble. I have to lean against the tree next to me, suddenly feeling my knees getting weak and knowing that they will not be able to support my weight for much longer._

"My God, Phoenix," _I whisper in stunned awe and amazement, my eyes wide and my shaking fingers slowly moving over my dry lips, putting my left hand against the tree trunk in order to steady myself, the pleasure coursing through me becoming unbearably overwhelming. _"You're... beautiful. So very, very beautiful. I can't take my eyes off of you."

_His sweet, delicious mouth twists into a mischievous half smile and I can feel my heart beginning to pound even harder, my breath coming in ragged gasps. He blushes slightly but I can tell that he's pleased with, not just the compliment, but with my reaction as well._

"So beautiful, Miles," _he says, his tongue slowly drawing over his lips in a slow, sensuous manner that leaves me gasping for air as I watch, my body becoming painfully aroused. _"You're so very... very attractive... " _He lifts himself up with serpentine grace until he's practically standing on the base of the stone fence. He then begins lifting his left arm slowly, his hand extending in invitation, a 'come hither' look in his hooded blue eyes_.

"Come to me, Miles," _his sweet, breathy voice whispers, his fingers twitching slightly, his eyes alight with blue fire. _"Please... come to me..."

_I find myself unable to resist his whispered entreaty, my arm beginning to shakily rise almost as if by its own volition, my fingers reaching out toward the outstretched hand of my lover, moaning in half pain, half pleasure as our fingers finally touched and linked together._

_I don't know what is causing me to react like this but I don't care as, slow by slow step, Phoenix pulls me toward him. I clamber over the fence, our fingers never once unlinking. He pulls me close to him, his free hand gently unfastening the towel until it slithers down my legs with a soft whisper, pooling into a pile of fabric at my feet._

"Miles!" _Phoenix cries as our flesh meets, his head rearing back in pleasurable ecstasy, his mouth dropping prettily open, moan after moan emerging from his throat. My body sags against the wall as his fingers skim over my flesh, more pain and pleasure flowing through me like a tidal wave, my senses on overload._

"Phoenix..." _I gasp softly as I feel his hand moving slowly and tantalizingly over my shivering flesh, his fingers kneading taut muscle gently. I can't help but wince as his fingers touch a particularly tender spot; I can feel his gentle laughter tickling my ear as his tongue slowly moves over my jaw line._

_The raw emotion pouring through my overheated body is searing deep into my soul. Its painfully hot and scalding pleasure surges throughout me, tearing an animal scream of passion from my lips. I can feel Phoenix's hot breath against my overly sensitive skin and it's amazingly erotic, judging from the moans and half mumbled sentences pouring from my mouth in a steady stream._

_I can't even think clearly anymore, what with this liquid fire flowing through my veins in a hot, pulsating stream of wanton lust and half-mad love. My senses swim as I feel him bite my neck, fresh pleasure flowing through me in a cascading wave, rising and falling in a crimson tide within._

"Come with me, Miles,"_ he whispers tenderly as he slowly steps back into the spring and taking me with him step by faltering step. _"I want you to come with me..."_ His lips graze my neck once again as he draws me along with him, deeper and deeper into the spring until we are up to our waists in water._

_He pulls me close to him, his lips swooping down and capturing mine in a kiss so passionately intense my head begins to spin, my legs threatening to crumple beneath me. An odd reaction from the 'Demon Prosecutor,' one might say, hard pressed to believe that I am capable of love._

_I am perfectly capable of love and always have been; however, in times past, what love I had was warped under the baleful influence and tutelage of Manfred von Karma who taught me that winning was everything and you had to do everything you could in order to do so. At that point in my life, I had concentrated most of my energy on my fledgling law career which, I am happy to report, was coming along very well indeed._

_What I hadn't realized is just _how _close I came to losing that part of me that was good and decent. Since Wright came back into my life, I shudder to think what may have been if he hadn't been so determined to save me from myself. It seems like a lifetime ago now, those long-ago days, and my gratitude to him is deep and heart-felt._

_He freed me from the prison I had erected around myself, breaking through the thick, distended walls with his loyalty, faith and love; freed me from the prison I never even knew I was enclosed in and freed me from a hell I wasn't even aware of._

_He saved me from so much and gave me so freely the key to himself that it takes my breath away when I think of it. He loved me without reservation, at times perhaps without much hope that it would ever be reciprocated but he never gave up... and my life has never been happier since._

_I could feel Phoenix's eager lips beginning to devour my mouth as he deepened the kiss we were sharing and I couldn't help but feel the corners of my mouth twitching in amusement under his. He knew I was distracted and had deliberately deepened the kiss to bring me back to reality. Not that I minded; in truth, I was grateful for the distraction since my mind was wandering back to memories that were better left buried in the dead past._

"Miles..." _I heard him moan as his wet, eager mouth traveled from mine, nibbled the corners of my mouth, traveling over my cheek and downward, gently biting and sucking down the underside of my throat, his fingers gently skimming over my wet skin._

"Phoenix..." _I groaned in return, shivering as stripes of pleasure lashed across my skin with his hungry lips. My eyes closed and my head fell back, swallowing hard as he gently explored me, soft moans pouring from my lips._

_I don't know when things began to change but, from somewhere deep in my befuddled mind, there was a voice screaming that there was danger... that something was wrong... that something had changed... that something incredibly evil was closing in on us... A cold breeze blew across the spring and despite the heat of the water, I shivered, goose-bumps rising on my exposed flesh._

_I felt Phoenix's fingers tighten on my arm briefly and I flinched slightly as they began to dig into my flesh. Phoenix noticed the change instantly, lifting his head and tilting it to the right, as if he were questioning something. It was obvious that something had changed but I wasn't sure exactly what._

"Phoenix? What's–"

"Shhh. Something's here..."

_I gave him a skeptical look._ "What? Are you-"

"Miles, please! There's _someone_ out there!"

_I craned my neck with some degree of annoyance and tilted my head to the right, away from those wonderful and tantalizing lips and listened. I couldn't hear anything which aggravated me even more._

_I could feel Phoenix's body trembling like a taut harp string so it was clear that he had heard something that put him on alert. I pursed my lips but said nothing as Phoenix slowly looked around him, his brow furrowing. I silently cursed whoever-or whatever-had interrupted our very pleasant-at least until now-rendezvous._

_After some time, he finally relaxed, his shoulders sagging with what I knew to be relief. The quiet of the now late afternoon had resumed and the oppressive atmosphere, which had been present just moments before, vanished completely._

_I sighed, laying my head on his shoulder. I felt his fingers slowly creep over my hair and I could feel the heat from his skin as he flushed. The corners of my mouth twitched with amusement as I nuzzled his neck, drawing from him a slight moan. Emboldened, I lifted my head and nibbled gently on his ear; he shuddered, more moans escaping from his mouth._

"Much better," _I murmured, moving my mouth across his cheek and down to his neck, my teeth latching onto the soft skin of his neck, biting down and sucking the skin hard. Phoenix responded by moaning loudly in a combination of pleasure and pain._ "Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted? Oh, yes... Here..."

_I stepped back slightly and took him into my arms, Phoenix falling to my advance like a ripe peach. His eyes were half-closed and his lips slightly parted, looking so luscious in the late afternoon sun that filtered through the green canopy above us._

_I loved this man with all my heart and I wanted nothing more than to make him happy, to have him by my side for a lifetime, to live and love every day of our lives, making sure that he knew just how much he meant to me every waking moment we spent together._

_Never, in my entire life, did I ever think that I would ever be this happy or find an enduring love like the one I shared with Phoenix. I smiled as our lips meshed together, moving against each other with rising passion as I pressed him close to me once again._

_I could feel him getting hard and I smiled with satisfaction as I gently began to rub my body against his, feeling his hard flesh becoming harder with each successive thrust. He moaned under my mouth, opening wider to receive my tongue that drove itself ever deeper in and out of his own, his arms wrapping around my waist._

_I moaned softly as I felt him press me hard against his trembling, hard body, his mouth devouring my own with hot, desperate kisses._

"Much better, Wright," _I murmured, moving my mouth across his cheek and down to his neck, my teeth latching onto the soft skin, biting down and sucking the skin hard, Phoenix moaning loudly in a combination of pleasure and pain. _"Much, much better..."

_I licked his bruised skin gently with long, luscious strokes of my tongue that rendered my lover into a quaking, writhing mass of aroused, heated and moaning flesh._

_I loved it when he was this aroused, his blue eyes glowing with undisguised lust and desire, his flesh hot and sensuous underneath my questing hands, lovely moans and half words and phrases pouring from his mouth in a delicious torrent. To see him half out of his mind with burning passion and heated pleasure was a wonderfully erotic sight._

"Perfectly delicious," _I whispered in his ear as I once again took his lobe between my teeth and nibbled, enjoying the scream of pleasure that I tore from my lover while his body thrashed and bucked in my arms, churning up the warm, steaming water around us._

_The wind blew cold once again but both of us were too consumed with desire to even notice the change. The trees above us began to sway as the wind rose, a deep, agonized groan echoing in the treetops as their branches were tossed back and forth, the falling leaves scattering on the ground with some falling into the churning spring._

"Phoenix..." I_ groaned, my left arm wrapped around him, my right slowly traveling down his back, dipping down into the water and cupping my hand. I slowly drew my hand back up to Phoenix's shoulders, pouring the water over him, cascading down his back in small rivulets._

"Miles..." _he moaned, groaning loudly, half-formed words and phrases flowing from his lips in an endless tide; I slid my hand back down his back again, once again bringing up my cupped hand and pouring the water over his back._

_There was a deep, ominous sighing that seemed at once to surround us but I didn't pay any attention to it at the time nor did I respond when that ominous sound became louder and more discordant, turning into a choir of tortured voices crying out as one, a loud cacophony of noise._

**S**

"Miles..."

**L**

"Phoenix, my sweet Phoenix..."

**I**

_I bit his neck hard._

**C**

_Phoenix cried out in mingled pleasure and pain, holding me hard against him, whimpering moans torn from deep within his throat_.

**E**

_My fingers wrapped themselves in his wet hair, pulling his head close to mine while I ground my lips hard against his, my tongue stabbing deep into his mouth._

**M**

_He moaned again, his body writhing in my grasp as I continued to pummel his soft mouth with my passionate kisses. He had groaned in protest only once but this was soon lost as his body surrendered to my passion._

**E**

_Phoenix shivered as the cold wind hit him, moaning and crying out as my ministrations drove him closer and closer to the edge. I watched him eagerly, wanting to see the moment of his completion. He opened his mouth to say something but I quickly clamped my mouth down on his, effectively silencing him._

**N**

"Miles... do you hear–?"

**I**

"I don't hear _anything_, Wright,"_ I growled in response, bending his head back and exposing his wonderfully tempting throat to my ravenous teeth._ "Now, come here..." _I latched onto his soft skin once again with a passion that surprises both of us with its intensity_.

**C**

"Miles... Oh, Miles!" _he cried in desperation as I pulled him hard against me, thrusting my leg between his thighs, pounding my body rhythmically against his, deep, throaty growls and screams of pleasure pouring from my mouth._

**E**

"Miles... Oh, God, you feel so good!"

**Slice...**

"Phoenix... My sweet Phoenix..."

**Me...**

_Our kisses became more demanding but I could also feel Phoenix leaning a little to the right, probably trying to hear that non-existent noise he keeps saying he's hearing._

**Nice...**

_Visions of crimson flowers crowd into my head while we kiss, my hand dipping into the water behind Phoenix and pouring it over his shoulders. I can feel the heat rising from his thrashing body; he's slumped against me, his mouth working feverishly underneath mine, driving my desire for him ever higher..._

**S**

_He's much more passionate than usual... not that this is a bad thing. I just want to devour him, I want him so much!_

**L**

_Wait... It's so.. quiet. I wonder where all the birds went..._

**I**

_My hand... what? There's something... red on my hand..._

**C**

_Crimson flowers, falling in a cascading sheet of blood red..._

**E**

_What... what is it? Why... why is there... red... on my hands? Phoenix...? Can you tell me?_

**M**

_Blood red... the color of blood...My blood runs hot for you... Fire in the blood... Crimson shade..._

**E**

_Roses... beautiful red roses... In full bloom..._

**N**

_Where is this coming from...? What is it...? Can it be...?_

_Splash..._

**I**

_Phoenix?_

_...Splash_

**C**

_He... he isn't..._

_Splash..._

_...splash_

**E**

_Why isn't he responding?_

**Slice...**

"Phoenix?" _I gave him a gentle shake._ "Are you all right? Is something the matter?"

**Me...**

_Cold... he feels so... cold..._

_Splash..._

_...splash_

_splash..._

**Nice...**

_I shook him again, a little harder this time. His head lolled back and forth with too much freedom for my liking, his eyes unfocused and unseeing. A blast of cold wind whips across my face and I rear back, pulling an unresponsive Phoenix along with me. It feels like I've just been struck._

_His skin is so cold that he feels like ice... and he's not moving. His blue eyes... they're so... empty..._

"Phoenix? Please... Please wake up..." _I can hear the pleading note in my voice. Something is _really _wrong_... "Phoenix, please... wake up! WAKE UP!"

_His eyelids flutter, bringing his head slowly up to look at me. For one moment, I feel the worst is behind me but then he gasps in pain, crying out in shock and surprise._

"Miles?"_ he asks, his eyes wide and staring as he looks at me. _"Why did you stab me?"

_My eyes widen in horror at the question. I hold him close, dipping my hand into the water, pouring it over his shoulders..._

-_**Skin on skin, crimson flowers opening their red petals**_-

"Stab you? I... didn't..."

-_**Fire in the blood**_-

"You... must have," _he gasped out, fear present in his gaze, his hands trembling slightly _"Who... else could it be but...you?" _His lips were turning blue, his teeth chattering. There were red rivulets running slowly down his back, blooming crimson flowers on his pale skin..._

"I... I didn't!"

_I couldn't!_

-_**Rivers of Red**_-

_I wouldn't!_

-_**Red Roses In Full Bloom**_-

_I love you!_

"Miles?" _Phoenix asks quietly, his eyes beginning to film over before my horrified gaze_. "Do you... do... you... love me?"

-_**The rose... dying in the flower of youth**_-

"I love you..." _I press my mouth hard against his, my heart breaking. He was dying... and I knew it. _"There's no one I love more..."

-_**Crimson Shadows**_-

_The cold wind blew through my hair, my bangs temporarily covering my eyes. When I had impatiently thrust them aside, I could see the red flowers decorating his pale skin from his shoulders downward, tiny rivers of red slowly creeping down his back to mix with the water..._

-_**Crimson river, flowing red**_-

_Phoenix opened his mouth to say something but it was cut off by the river of blood that flew out of his mouth, spattering my pale face with the red tide. I opened my mouth wide in a silent scream as he leaned over me, his head lolling lifelessly on my shoulder, blood trickling from his mouth in tiny, red streams..._

-**You kill everything you love, Miles... You killed the one person who loved you more than anyone else in the world. How does that make you feel... von Karma's heir?**-

_My head snapped up to see the face of my father looking at me from his stationary position on the other side of the spring, a sad expression and disappointed look gracing his green, mottled face._

_This... can't be!_

"Father! Father, I-"

-**I'm disappointed in you, Miles... I didn't raise you to be a killer...- **_He walked to the edge of the spring and dipped his hand in the water, his expression never changing as he pulled it back up, red water falling to the ground between his fingers._

_My face went white as he cast those black, dead eyes on me once again, his mouth turning down, exposing a bit of pale cream colored bone through his rotted skin. He looked angry._

-**Have you forgotten everything I taught you, Miles? Where is the loving boy I once knew? Where has he gone, Miles... do you know?**- Those black, dead eyes fastened on mine, a baleful look crossing his greenish-black skin before he looked down again, staring at the crimson water below him. -**Or do you even care?**-

"That isn't true!" _I cried out, sick at heart, clutching Phoenix's as now motionless body close to my own, trying desperately to put some warmth and life into his cold, dead flesh. What did bother me was that there was a small sliver of truth to that statement; who-or what-I was in the long dead past no longer had any meaning to me in the present._

_He shook his head sadly, his skeletal fingers dyed bright red from the crimson water. I didn't want to meet that penetrating gaze but I couldn't help it, my grey eyes slowly meeting his black ones._

_I shuddered, holding Phoenix close to me, his blood slowly slipping down his back and into the water. My hand shook as I slowly brought it up to eye level, seeing the creases of my palm dyed red with Phoenix's blood. He was so still and cold... I moaned like a dying animal as I crushed his lifeless form to me, lamenting loudly._

_My father made no comment but the look in the dead, black pools that were his eyes spoke volumes; I was a disappointment in his eyes, I was a failure as a person, he regretted even fathering me and disgusted because I couldn't even save the life of my lover. My father was right: Phoenix was dead... and it was all my fault._

_I wept as I held my dead lover close to me, whispering an apology for being unable to protect him in a voice choked with tears, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces as the sun set, covering the world in a soft blanket of velvet black._

"How pathetic you are, Miles Edgeworth," a_ mellow voice said with disdain and I slowly lifted my head to see a tall, slim, handsome man with shoulder length blonde hair and sparkling emerald green eyes lounging on the other side of the spring, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. _"Crying over spilt milk won't bring him back, you know, so why do you bother even shedding tears over nothing more than a mere shell?"

_He laughed as he looked at me, a harsh, barking sound and I slowly stepped back from him when I saw the mad glitter in his bright green eyes, his sensuous mouth twisting into an evil, bitter smirk. I pulled Phoenix even closer to me, eyeing the man warily; it was almost as if I was trying to protect the shell I held in my arms from that evil man._

_He laughed with amusement as I scurried as far away from him as I could._

"How sickeningly _quaint_," _he said with a mocking smile, his eyes glittering as he slowly stepped into the spring, making his way over to where I was standing holding Phoenix's body, tilting his head slightly to the left, his lips twisted into a sneer._ "So much energy expended to protect the dead while you let the living perish." _He giggled, a high-pitched nasally sound._ "You _do_ have the distressing habit of leaving a trail of dead bodies behind you, don't you... Mr. Edgeworth?"

_I backed away from him, my eyes never once leaving his face, my eyes narrowing into little slits._

"I don't know what you are talking about," _I said coldly, digging my fingers into the hair at the back of Phoenix's head as we circled each other, Phoenix's dead weight making quick movement a bit difficult to do but I would NOT let him go this time; I had failed him while he was living but I was now determined to do all I could to try and protect him in death._

_I pressed Phoenix's cold cheek next to mine, leaving a streak of crimson on my cheek but I didn't think too much of it as I slid quickly to the left in order to avoid the man's reaching out with his right hand, churning the crimson water into a bloody red froth._

_The man smiled grimly as he circled ever closer and I kept moving back to avoid him._

"Why are you so interested in protecting that which isn't even alive?" _he asked, grinning from ear to ear. _"It's nothing more than food for worms and an _unfit_ one, at that." _He stopped and looked at me, noting my bared teeth with some amount of surprise and titling his head to the right, genuine curiosity on his face. _"He's **dead**. What does it matter anymore to _him_... or _you_?" _He uncrossed his arms, holding out his hand as if in supplication. "Why_ do _you_ even care?"

"Because of who he is... _was_," _I replied quietly, my fingertips tenderly stroking his cold face, my eyes filling with tears. _"He is... _was_... my life... my heart... and my... my... soul."

_I gently lifted Phoenix's head from my shoulder and looked tenderly at his face, stroking his cold, dead flesh softly with shaking fingertips._ "He saved me from myself, perhaps even loving me at times when I wasn't sure I could love anyone or when there didn't seem to be any hope that I would love him back. That didn't stop him..." _I chuckled ruefully, tears beginning to pool in my eyes, swallowing hard as I held him close to me._

_The man looked at me through little evil, emerald-green slits and I thought that I could detect amusement in the penetrating gaze he fixed upon me._

"How... _quaint_, Mr. Edgeworth," _he said, mockery plain in his tone, his cupid mouth curling into a sneer. _"You _are_ indeed a pathetic little man, aren't you?"_ He fixed a burning green gaze on me that penetrated me right to my very marrow; I shuddered and slowly began to creep backwards away from him once again, my eyes never once leaving his face and determined to put as much distance between him and I as possible._

_He smiled, obviously enjoying this cat and mouse game he was engaging in, taunting me with increasingly nasty insults that I was trying my best to ignore but were slowly starting to get to me... and he knew it._

"What is it that you're afraid of?" _the green eyed man asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he slowly made his way over to us, the nine inch switchblade he held in his hand glimmering wickedly in the semi-twilight. _"Surely it isn't...** I**, is it?" _He gave me a toothy grin that looked like a tiger baring its fangs. _"Why would you fear a shadow?"

_In the blink of an eye, he vanished; I whirled this way and that, trying to find him but there was no trace of him. It was like he had never been there at all..._

_Was it just my imagination or was there really an emerald green-eyed man standing there just a few moments before? I looked frantically all around, my hand pressing Phoenix's head against my shoulder, churning up the red water into a foaming crimson whirlpool. My hair whipped around my head in my frantic state, slapping me painfully on the left side of my face. I winced but barely acknowledged the pain, my mind taken up with more serious things._

"Where did he go?" _I asked out loud to no one in particular._ "I knew he was here a minute ago! He can't have vanished into thin air!"

"Of course I could," _a menacing voice whispered into my left ear and I cried out with fear as I spun around to face the emerald green-eyed man who stood there behind me._ "And you _should_ be afraid of a shadow... You _never_ know _where_ they may be lurking..."

_With that, he lunged forward, plunging the knife into Phoenix's back up to the hilt, a twisted expression of pleasure on his face as he jerked upward on the blade, inflicting a deep gash in Phoenix's back. I screamed in terror as I saw Phoenix lift his head and cry out in pain, blood fountaining from the horrific wound, covering me in a crimson sheet as the world dissolved around me..._

--o--

"**NOOOOOOOOOO!**!"I screamed as I shot bolt upright in bed, my body shaking so violently my teeth rattled. Tears spilled down my cheeks like rain, my shaking fingers clutching the hem of the comforter so hard my knuckles were beginning to turn a ghostly white. "**Phoenix... NO! NO! Oh, God... NO!!**"

"Miles...?" I dimly heard Phoenix's frightened voice asking me if I was all right, feeling his body shift as he turned over and sat up. I sucked in gulps of air into my aching lungs, strangled mewling sounds pouring from my mouth, my eyes wide and unseeing.

_Oh my God... oh my God... oh my God.._. my fevered brain cried over and over, my body trembling from head to foot with terror. _He was... alive! He was ALIVE and I let him die!! Oh, God... I let him DIE!!_

I felt warm arms wrap themselves around my shoulders, pulling me close to a warm body that I instinctively knew to be Phoenix's, his soft voice whispering tenderly, "It's ok, Miles... It's only a nightmare and nothing more. Shhhh... you're here with me, it's all right. You're safe... no one will hurt you, I promise..."

I sank gratefully into my lover's arms, choking sobs rocking my body violently; he held me close to him, his love soothing me from the terrors of the night...

_What did it all mean?_ I wondered, burying my face in Phoenix's neck as he comforted me and clinging to him like a drowning man. _What does it all mean?_

--o--

_In another part of the city another man woke, his emerald green eyes gleaming with undisguised_ _pleasure as he cried out with pure, unadulterated joy, "Kaine! I've had the most _**wonderful**_ dream!"_


End file.
